


Acrid

by askboo



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 07:08:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11984748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/askboo/pseuds/askboo
Summary: Scent blockers are mandatory per NCAA regulation - but that didn't stop Eric Bittle from smelling like butter and cinnamon.





	Acrid

**Author's Note:**

> I...I don't know.
> 
> Extra special A/B/O reasons why Jack was mean to Bitty in first year.
> 
> Excuse to imagine Jack sitting in his room all 3 years accosted by Bitty smelling like pie all the time.

Scent blockers are mandatory per NCAA regulation - but that didn't stop Eric Bittle from smelling like butter and cinnamon.

At first, Jack thought it was just all the baking. Bittle was constantly in the Haus' kitchen, even and sometimes especially during midterms, cooking up more batches of baked goods that even an entire hockey team could be expected to eat. And eat they did - Bittle had an adoring public when he was over, all the Haus' residences crowded around the table in addition to a few members of the team that were rarely over under any other circumstance. Jack thought they were all just waiting to be fed, until he went downstairs one day to grab dinner, the whole house thick with the scent of rich cinnamon, and Bittle was sitting on the couch playing Mario Karts with the others - the kitchen was dark, the oven was off, and there were no pies cooling by the window.

And well. That was just great, wasn't it. This tiny waif of a kid was an alpha. 

He kept Bittle behind in the locker room after the next practice, glaring down across the room at him from his own cubby. "You have to take your blockers, Bittle," he said. "The team could get disqualified if you don't."

Bittle looked surprised, his round brown eyes widening with innocence. "I _do_ take them," he said. 

Jack kept glaring at him. Even over the smell of sweat and cheap cologne, Eau de Locker Room, he could smell Bittle. "Consistently?" he demanded. 

"Every day since I was thirteen," Bittle said, frowning now. "Jack, what is all this about?"

No one else on the team had said anything, even though they were all so obviously drawn to Bittle. Maybe Bittle should be the captain, since it obviously all came so easily to him. "Nothing," Jack muttered, getting to his feet. "Nevermind."

He took to stuffing a towel underneath his door, after that.

*

He didn't treat Bittle very nicely. Everything about the younger man made him angry. Shitty was disapproving, but the others were too scared to say anything - and Bittle himself put up with it with a remarkable lack of complaint. Small, friendly Bittle, without an inch of dominance in him. He was scared of being checked, for God's sake, but the team _flocked_ to him. He was a natural leader. It was all so easy for him, just because of the luck of how he'd been born. 

If anything, that was the only sign Bitty was an alpha at all until the day Jack started yelling at him on the ice during practice. Bittle had flubbed the puck because Ollie had come up close to him from behind, and Jack's patience had worn through. If that happened during a game, because Bittleq was too scared, why was he even _on_ the team if he couldn't be a man about it--

Bittle's eyes had gone dark as molasses. His sweet, cinnamon scent deepened until it burned the inside of Jack's nose. " _Enough_ ," he snapped, and Jack's eyes snapped to the ice, his spine curling in, instinctively making himself smaller.

This time, it was Shitty who held him back in the locker room. He had one hand on his waist as he stood in front of Jack's cubby, and his eyes were disapproving but calm. "That was bad, even for you," Shitty said.

Jack scrubbed a hand through his sweaty hair. "He doesn't take his blockers," he muttered. "Can't you smell him?"

"He smells like he showers, that's about it," Shitty said. "Which is more than I can say for most of the frogs. Anyway, it's not his scent - people like him because he's nice to them. He doesn't take out his designation issues on the rest of us."

Jack raised his eyes to Shitty's. He knew a dig when he heard one. 

"It's not his fault he's an alpha and you're not," Shitty said softly. "It doesn't even matter to anyone but you. What you're doing, it isn't fair - you're being a bad leader, and that's on you."

Jack sighed, this time scrubbing his hands over his face. He took a deep breath, and let it out. 

"Can you really smell him?" Shitty asked quietly, after a moment.

"All the time," Jack answered quietly.

"Well," Shitty said, reaching out to mess with Jack's hair. "Maybe that's the universes' way of saying you could benefit from knowing him."

**

Jack found Bittle sitting on the roof, outside Shitty's room. The music from the party downstairs was muffled. Bitty's legs were hanging over the side of the roof and he was holding a bottle of beer between his knees.

"I owe you an apology," Jack said stiffly, from all the way over at the window.

Bitty turned to look at him. His eyes were red rimmed. His smell was still smoky. Jack realized with a pang in his chest that he'd made this person genuinely unhappy. He climbed carefully over the window sill and walked over to the edge of the room, sinking down beside Bittle on the roof. He didn't say anything for a long time, until Bittle tilted his head to look at him. "Well?"

"Well, what?"

"Well, the apology?"

Jack blinked at him in surprise. He'd thought "I owe you an apology" _was_ an apology. 

Bittle sighed. He set his beer down beside his hip. 

Jack panicked a little, thinking he was getting ready to leave. "I just--" he said. "It's not easy. What I want to do with my life, it's at odds with what I am. I have to work twice as hard if I want to make it, and you--"

Bittle's fine blonde eyebrows were pulled down. "You think it was easy for me?" he snapped. "Growing up like this? An alpha who's tiny and gentle and has absolutely no interest in contact sports? You think my daddy was okay with my aspirations to be a figure skater or a baker?"

Jack's words got caught in his throat. He stared.

"I tried it their way. I tried to play football and be an alpha the way my parents wanted me to. And you know what? It only made me more miserable. I figured there were gonna be people eventually who liked me for who I was, and I was right, but those years were hell, and you know what?" Bittle pushed to his feet. "I never used those feelings as an excuse to hurt other people. So don't come to me with your excuses and call it an apology."

Jack stopped smelling Bittle at all, after that.

*

He waited for Bittle outside Founder's just before winter exams. It had been three weeks since their talk on the roof. Jack waited, leaning against the railing until his hands turned red from the cold, until the blond emerged from the library.

He looked surprised, and stopped when he saw Jack.

"You were right," Jack said, across the space between them.

Bittle sighed, and wrapped his scarf tighter around himself. He approached Jack slowly, his expression wary.

"I don't always realize what other people are feeling. I don't always--think, about what they're feeling, I'm only thinking about me," Jack said. "That's...what makes it hard. Not that I'm an omega. I know that."

Bittle slid his hands into his pockets. He looked up at Jack quietly for awhile. "Jack, you're better than you think," he said softly. "The boys look up to you. You're amazing at hockey. I don't have any doubts you're going to make it. The only thing holding you back is you and the way you feel about yourself."

Jack leaned back against the railing and sighed out. "I know," he said eventually. "I was an asshole to you because I was jealous."

"Well, don't be," Bittle said, with a small smile. "There's plenty about being me you wouldn't like. Grass is always greener, and all that."

Jack chuckled. He straightened again, then put out his hand to touch Bittle's shoulder. "What I meant to say is, I'm sorry."

Bittle took Jack's hand off his shoulder, but only to warm it between two of his gloved ones. "You're forgiven," he said softly. "Can we be friends?"

"Yeah," Jack said, and he felt...he thought he felt...happy. "And actually, I thought of a way I can make it up to you."

He laughed at Bittle's expression in reaction to his idea. "Checking practice," he said dully. "Right, I should have known, with you, it'll always be more hockey."

A burst of icy wind brought Bitty's buttery sweet scent back to his nose.


End file.
